By:JOSEPH KELLARD
An Oceanside resident was named by published reports as the informant who helped lead authorities to arrest 27 men believed to be connected with the Bonanno crime family last Tuesday.
James (Louie) Tartaglione, 55, of Oceanside, was named as the mob "rat" by lawyers of some of the defendants, although authorities have declined to reveal the name of the informant.
Tartaglione is alleged to have secretly recorded numerous conversations of reputed members of the Bonanno crime family, including acting boss Anthony (Tony Green) Urso and acting underboss Joseph Cammarano, over the past six months. At one high-level meeting, a miked-up Tartaglione captured Urso talking about murdering the child of a cooperating witness in the case of boss Joseph Massino, who is awaiting trial for eight murders, according to reports.
"Why should the rat's kids be happy, where my kids or your kids should suffer because I'm away for life?" Urso is said to have asked, according to a 206-page memorandum compiled by Assistant U.S. Attorneys Greg Anders, Nicolas Bourtin, Robert Henoch and Mitra Hornozi. "If you take one kid, I hate to say it, and do what you gotta do, they'll f------ think twice."
The memo also noted that the tapes reveal that Massino is running the crime family from his jail cell in Brooklyn.
Among the 27 people arrested last week is Vito Rizzuto, the Bonanno family's reputed representative in Montreal, charged with participating in the murders of three Bonnano capos in May 1981.
The Daily News reported last Wednesday that defense lawyer Larry Bronson, Tartaglione's representative in a 1998 federal extortion case, disclosed that his former client was the informant. Jerry Capeci, who reports on the goings-on in organized crime, wrote in last Thursday's New York Sun that federal court documents revealed Tartaglione as the informant.
"It's not accurate," Anders told the Herald concerning reports that his office revealed Tartaglione as the informant. "No one from the U.S. Attorney's Office has disclosed his identity, and we won't disclose it."
The Daily News also reported that Bronson called Tartaglione's home last Tuesday and was told by Tartaglione's wife, "He's gone; they picked him up."
Bronson did not return the Herald's calls for comment.
